Cze wrote:
>I'm glad someone brought up Black Athena, because I am pretty bummed about
>the extremely simplistic way some of the ideas have been applied in
>teaching. Of course we are all way over the 19thC - Nazi idea that Germans
>are good because Aryans are the ancient Greeks. But is it so much better
>to say that American black people are good *because* Africans are the
>ancient Greeks? Bernal's problems aside, that seems to shift the whole
>geographic resonance issue quite unjustifiably, and fades the "real"
>Africa(s) out while privileging Greece.
I've been teaching an upper division cultural pluralism class on BA for
several years now. BA, Afrocentrism, and the issues surrounding it aren't
about saying African Americans (AA's) are good because the ancient Greeks
were African. This is an oversimplification. Bernal has been embraced by
Afrocentrists (and subsequently reviled by many Classicists) because AA's
have felt excluded and marginalized in the mainstream western curriculum.
This is what gives Afrocentrism its hold on AA's. I had a black student say
to me that the only time her people were mentioned in a history course was
to say something to the effect that the cotton gin was invented so another
thousand slaves had to be imported. I advocated at the end of my course
coming up with a real multicultural way of teaching history. For my own
courses on Greek art and Ancient art this has meant spending less time on
Athens and the Acropolis and including lectures on blacks in the ancient
world, gender, and Romanization as colonialism.
BA doesn't just fade the "real" Africa while privileging Greece. Greece is
already privileged and fetishized in the western educational curriculum.
Louise
Louise A. Hitchcock, Ph.D.
Research Associate
Von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies
UCLA
310-825-9639
For more info on the Center and its Programs:
http://www.isop.ucla.edu/cnes
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